I recently spent 5 weeks in Mexico undertaking marine conservation work with the GVI. Great experience. Once we finished a few of us decided to treat ourselves to a 2 tank dive in Cozumel. Being a naive and inexperience diver i followed the dive master to the t. I cringe when i look back. 1st dive was at 23 m for 40 mins, we then had a surface interval time of around 30mins then our second dive was 18m at 40 mins. These are clearly outwith any dive tables and subsequently i discovered that i suffered the bends (bubble in the brain) and now its recommended that i never dive again after receiving treatment in a chamber.

Is there anyway i can report this company so they dont put other divers at risk.

Shane

posted :
August 21, 2006 Post subject: Bubble Trouble
Sounds horrific. I dived in Cozumel earlier this year and they did stray very close to no-decompresion limits. Kept a close eye on my computer and spent a couple of dives well above the DM.

You can report them to PADI, assuming they were PADI accredited. But you'll have signed a waiver before you dived I expect and (assuming you're OW qualified) then a lot of the responsibility comes down to you. Nobody forced you to stay down but I fully appreciate that as an inexperienced diver it's sometimes easy to just follow...

It reminds me of a story about two new divers on the Zenobia in Cyprus who followed their guide into the ship and one of them died as they got lost and couldn't surface.

I'd get in touch with PADI, give them all the details and see a medical specialist about the longer term effect of your bend to see what the realistic chances of diving again are. Hope things work out.

The doctors said that im fine now (touch wood). I had dived with the company 2 weeks earlier and signed waiver then. But for that dived im pretty sure that they never got us to sign a waiver and they are PADI accredited. The whole thing seemed a rush job to be honest and the DM couldnt get us back in the water soon enough.

RIchard

posted :
August 24, 2006 Post subject: Bubble Trouble
Neil, I have dived in Cozomel and the dive guides had total disregard for dive profiles and tables. And this generally seems to be the standard in Mexico. And you are right, they do want to rush through the day and we too only had a 30 minute surface interval. I can tell you many horror stories about things that happened out there including one where on a wreck penetration dive at just over 30 metres, they took a couple who were only qualified to OW level. One of the couple ran out of air and I had to rescue the person as the only dive guide had to surface with anouther couple who had problems.

SO yourself and all other divers a favour. Contact PADI and they will get you to complete a Quality Assurance form and they will then investigate the circumstances.

PADI are very serious about standards as they are about safety and breaches of safety mess with peoples lives.